Breaking Point OneShot
by Desanera
Summary: Jane gave Daria her blessing to date Tom. What if that's not enough for Daria?


  
  


Title: Breaking Point   
Author: Desanera (c) 2000   
Distribution: Ask First  
Timeline: Right before "Is it Fall Yet?" 

This is a ficlet. If it doesn't sound like Daria, and you don't think she'd act this way, etc etc, don't blame me. I didn't write this, I channeled it, just as I'm channeling this. The words are pouring through me now, and I don't want them to stop, so I'm giving them all the room they need. And this fic is my only focus right now. So I think it deserves a little readership. I apologize for the incoherence, I will return and fix things such as syntax and grammar, and any suggestions as to improving the clarity of this would be much welcome. Be truthful. I'm already broken. Truth can't hurt me now :)

  
god I love to turn my  
little blue world upsidedown  
god I love to turn my little  
blue world upsidedown  
inside my head the noise  
chatter chatter chatter  
chatter chatter  
you see I'm afraid I'll always be  
still comin out of my mother  
upside down  
don't you love to turn this  
little blue girl upsidedown  
I know you love to turn this  
little blue girl baby upsidedown  
but my heart it says  
you've been shatter shatter shatter  
shatter shattered  
and I know you're still a boy  
still comin out of your mother  
but when you gonna stand on your  
own  
I say the world is sick you say  
tell me what that makes us darlin  
You see you always find my faults  
faster than you find your own  
you say the world is getting rid  
of her demons I say  
baby what have you been  
smokin well I dreamed  
I loved a black boy  
my daddy would scream  
don't you love to turn this  
little Blue girl upside down  
any kind of touch I think is  
better than none even upside down  
but you see I'm tangled up  
got a kitten in my hair  
Cincinnati I like the word  
it's the only thing we can't seem  
to turn upside down  
well I found the secret to life  
I found the secret to life  
I'm O.K when everything is not O.K  
Don't we love to turn our   
little Blue world upside down  
don't we love to turn our  
little Blue world baby upside down  
inside my head a voice  
chatter chatter chatter chatter  
chatter and it says girl  
you've are the same  
still comin out of your mother  
still comin out of your mother  
upsidedown  
Tori Amos - "Upside Down"   
Breaking Point  
By Desanera  
  
Daria stood at the door to her house, literally locked in-between the pull of not wanting to be home, and not having anywhere else to go. Unable to move either way, she sat down on the porch and stared out onto the road. She almost laughed, a move that would have surprised anyone who knew her. If anyone still did.  
  
::When the hell did my life get so complicated:: she thought. A line of Shakespeare drifted through her mind, "'Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The sound and fury was recent, before recent events her life had been silence. A silence she had thought signified nothing until she lost it. She honestly couldn't say which one was better. Silence or sound. Once, she'd thought the noise was better, the sign of a life and a living assured of itself. Not so.  
  
  
Sitting down on the front steps, she looked out at Lawndale. Her personal hell. Or was it? It certainly wasn't as bad as Highland. Except there were only about six idiots there instead of an entire town of them. Oh hell, when did everything fall apart.   
  
Caught in a moment of stillness, Daria watched the suburban afternoon unfold around her. It had been two days since her last talk with Jane. "Sure, we're still friends" she'd quipped. "We're the kind of friends who can't stand the sight of each other." Two days ago it had pinched like a nerve. Now, the waves of pain rolled over her, setting each nerve ending dancing in white-hot agony. She was used to it by now. She had to be. There was nothing to stop it. Everything she'd created to protect herself from the world was gone, weakened by two years of friendship with Jane and her crush on Trent, destroyed utterly by her own self-denial, her own refusal to admit what she actually felt.   
  
At the mere thought of his name, she tensed. That whole mess was still tangled. She wanted him. It scared her. She never wanted anything. It was a response to her sister, who constantly wanted everything. Oh, Daria asked, and was upset when snubbed, after all, she deserved fair treatment But the things themselves never really mattered. That's why Tom scared her so much. That's why she kept denying that anything had happened. Even to herself. Trent had been right. Playing dumb hadn't been the answer. But then, she hadn't had an answer then. She couldn't admit it to herself. That she actually wanted something. Someone. The fact that it was Jane's boyfriend just made it worse.  
  
The problem was, despite the fact that she had Jane's blessing, she couldn't just go and date Tom and see how things ended up. It was more serious than that. She didn't know who she was anymore. Over the past year, the walls she defined her life by were weakening. It was alright at the start, because it was just Jane. Well, Jane and Trent, but still, a select group of fellow misfits. This latest had cracked her wide open. It was bound to happen someday. She had admitted as much to Jodie, that her way of life was what worked for her now. Change had to hit her someday. She just thought she had more time. That it would be when she had something new all ready to put in its place, like a snake shedding skin. And now? She didn't know. Daria stood up again and entered her house. She knew one thing thought. She couldn't stay here.  
  
Later that night:  
  
"Tis the very witching time of night. When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world". She smiled to herself. She didn't believe in ghosts or hell, but she believed in darkness. For tonight she believed. Because here it was, blanketing the streets around her house like snow, deadening noise and softening everything. She checked her watch. It was just a matter of time. For the first time in weeks, she felt light, clear. She knew what she had to do. Amazing how easy things become when you make a decision, pick a direction and start walking. Figuratively of course. She ran her hands through her hair and pulled, loosening the tense muscles at her scalp. Almost as an afterthought, she started braiding her hair, pulling it away from her face. There was no point in using this to hide anymore. Her walls were already destroyed. There was nothing to keep the world from reaching her. No safety in hiding. She had already done away with the rest of her disguise, wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, and wearing the new contacts her doctor had given her to replace the first, defective ones. Her mother had insisted she keep them for a rainy day. She'd had no idea.  
  
She still held her old glasses though, and fingered them as she stared out into the darkness. All her life, she'd chosen substance over style, the perversity of truth over easy fiction, no matter how bitter the taste. Did she have the courage to leave everything she knew behind to find out her truth? To find out who she was behind the glasses and the hair and the outfit and the walls? Was she as committed to living a real true honest life as she thought? She didn't know. But then, that was the point of it all, wasn't it? Because she couldn't do anything until she found the answer to the essential questions - Who am I? What do I want?  
  
She faced her house and took a deep breath.  
"Good bye Daria."  
and snapped her glasses in half.  
  
She laid them on the front steps, placing a small packet with them. ::Melodrama:: she thought. A tale full of sound and fury. Signifying...hopefully something. She walked away from the house already beginning to feel lighter, until she almost reached the end of her block. Before she reached the end, she was stopped by an all-too-familiar voice.  
  
"Daria?"  
  
It was Trent. It was funny, at one time, he'd been the most threatening thing in her carefully built world. How long ago that had been! She turned to face him, curious as to what it would feel like now that she was stripped bare. A warm feeling spread through her - not the feverish attraction she felt with Tom, nor the awkward fidgety feeling of an unrequited crush. Just genuine good will and admiration for the person in front of her. Because for all his faults, Trent was simple. And though he had no idea where he was going, or how to get there, he knew who he was. And she envied him that.  
  
"New look" he said, with a hint of a question in his voice. She almost laughed. That short sentence would have been a paragraph to anyone else, meaning "I'm worried about you and came by to see how you were doing to find you in strange clothes with your hair braided and no glasses. I want to make sure your ok and want to ask how you are but respect your privacy and if you don't want to talk I can wait until you do."   
  
Earlier, if she had been ready, such a talk could have solved everything, either helped her to mend her walls, or at least to slow them to a rate she could deal with. It was far too late now. She was in pieces, just like her glasses, and this search, this answering of the questions she'd slammed into was way too vital to postpone. She had to leave now, before her Mom made good on her threat to send Daria to some sappy-sounding summer camp, and before close quarters with that much inanity forced overloaded her new senses and forced her to go postal.   
  
She stared at Trent, almost giddy at the waves of pure feeling rippling through her, unencumbered by walls. Acting on pure impulse, she leapt up and kissed him, hanging off his bony frame for an instant before dropping off and stepping back to study his reaction. He stared at her, frozen with his jaw dropped open. It was clear she'd done the last thing he'd expected her to do. As for her, she was completely suffused by warmth. The same warmth shed felt before, except this time from the inside.  
  
At that point, her cab pulled up at the end of the block. She started towards it, and Trent shook off his paralysis to lay a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Daria?" he asked.  
  
The new being looked at her old friend, beaming a gentle, almost unearthly smile at him. She shook her head at him, and her eyes were almost sad.  
  
"Daria doesn't exist anymore." she said in a soft voice as she walked backwards to the cab. "At least, not for now." The door closed and the cab sped off, with the new being crouched in it's depths. She didn't want to see if Trent would run to catch her. He didn't have the lung strength to do it, and she was sure his expression would be painful. Jane did have the stamina, but Trent wouldn't get to her fast enough.  
  
The cab would get her to the bus station. The pharmacy by the station would get her a new hair color, disguise enough in the rare event she met anyone she knew. The savings in her backpack would give her a good start. Where? Who knew. But she did know that she had to go. Just as she knew she'd be back.  
  
In an envelope in a packet by a pair of broken glasses being fingered by a still stunned musician, the words daria left for her family almost hummed faintly.  
  
Hi Mom  
  
Try not to freak out and call the police. I haven't been kidnapped or abducted or anything else Dad's seen on the evening news. You know I can take care of myself. I just need to be away for a while. You know why. Please give the other envelopes in this packet to Jane, Tom, Trent, Jodie and Quinn. And Dad, though I don't know how far he'll get through it before he breaks a blood vessel in his eye again. Try to calm him down, I don't want him to have another heart attack before I get back.   
  
I am coming back. I just need this summer to myself.  
Thanks Mom.  
Your wandering daughter.  
  
  



End file.
